So, the year has ended, and I’ve learned a lot in my migration to ubuntu. Here’s My Must have’s and where to find ’em.

1, ubuntu 7.10(Gutsy Gibben) – Release of the year no doubt. Smooth and easy clean install. They’ve probably doubly general user appeal with this release.
2. Flock – Flocking is the best thing since Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button. If you use a lot of web 2.0 sites, this cuts browsing time in half, easy.
3. Tomboy Notes – I would get nothing done. as a writer,without Tomboy. Also great for GTD.
4. Pidgin – The messenger of choice again after a clean install. It’s everything you need for IMs and IRC.
5. Thunderbird Mail – Evolution was the browser of choice last time, but Thunderbird is too entrancing.
6. Dwarf Fortress – Best crazy addict roguelike, world-sim. Runs easy in wine.
7. Exaile Music Player – Wins mostly because it works more consistently than it’s alternatives, Amarok, and Listen.
8. Limewire/ktorrent – TIe – for best downloading utilities..
9. OpenOffice – for the real writing.
10. GRAMPS – gotta love this genealogy thing I’m doing for the parents.
11. Sound Juicer – for makin’ the .ogg’s.
12. k3b – for burning anything.

Did I miss anything? Tell me in the comments, if I missed your favorite app! Oh, I already see one i left out. GIMP, for all things photo editing.

Getting Things Done(GTD) is a fairly big deal in the world of professionals, and moving into an area with writers and computers. Here’s a little insight into my personal system.

In Ubuntu, I utilize Tomboy Notes. Tomboy is one of the best organizational tools out there.

In Tomboy, I keep 2 windows open at all times. First, a “Thoughts” window, which functions mostly as a sandbox. Here is where I throw every random thought, idea, delusion, hallucination, and so forth. I go through and clean out my thoughts sandbox daily. Second, a “To Do” window, which is sort of self explanatory. My to-do list branches off into many lists, wiki-style, based on due dates and topics.

Away from the computer, I keep a voice recorder, a file cabinet, and an “Inbox” for things that need immediate attention.

This conversation usually results in a happier, more effective Windows User. This doesn’t solve the problem, or even begin to discuss it here, as it’s simpler, and, at the same time, much more complex than you’d expect.

What’s matters is that Ad-Aware rocks! It’s free from http://www.download.com. And both sites should pay me for writing this and for the literally 1000s I’ve told face to face. You may send said compensation to lhasa.jack@gmail.com via PayPal. Thank you, in advance.

-Loki

Also, in response to a lot of Windows bitches lately, Just copy off what you need and do a clean install of ubuntu. It’d make you happier. Those of you that doesn’t really want a computer for gaming, but more for computing, ubuntu is the answer. (Canonical may use the same PayPal address for royalties.)

The programs listed below refuse to run in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. I’ll give all details I can. If you’ve got an idea, but need more details, let me know what you need. I have removed and reinstalled all programs to no avail. Here goes.

1. NetHack. – Crashes on start up. All interpreters do this: GNOME NetHack, Qt-NetHack, and X NetHack. I’m having to play NetHack on a public server via Java. UGH.

2. zsnes. – I adjusted the screen size to make things readable, but apparently that was too much and now this crashes on start. I can find no way to edit the configuration files to fix this(most likely because the files system used by Ubuntu is a lot like looking at an interstate pile up.)

3. Pidgin. – Pidgin started off by giving me errors any time I wanted to add a new buddy. This got worse until it began to crash on start up.

4. Kopete. – Kopete is brilliant, except that it makes no sound, and crashes completely if I try to get it to connect to my MSN.

5. SIM. – Yes, I have tried every messenger to get one that works as well as Trillian, but no luck yet. SIM crashes if I try to get it to sign onto my Yahoo.

6. AWN. – Avant Window Manager. AWN crashes on start up. I’ve never been able to get this to work.

7. Azureus. – Azureus crashes on start up. It has also never worked. I’m using kTorrent now, which is great, but all these programs that won’t even start really pis me off.

8. MythTV. – MythTV goes straight into not being able to find the database. I’ve set up the MySQL for it, BUT I cannot get the database to populate. I’ve followed the instructions for this from the MythTV Wiki, but it still shoots back the error on start up. This has also never worked correctly, in fact, it has never worked at all.

9. GnomeBaker. – Everytime it says that the burn speed needs to be adjusted, but guess what, I can’t adjust it! I’ve switched to using k3b, which works well, but is not integrated into my GNOME desktop, making it a slightly annoying work around. [edit 11.06.07 – After Gutsy upgrade, Gnome Baker seems to work fine]

10. Not really a program problem, but super annoying. I can find no program that will allow me to burn .m4a files to audio. I can play them just fine.

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Linux users! If you have any idea of what could be happening with these programs, let me know!

Seems like more and more people are jumping on the Ubuntu train. I need to do an article to give an update on my experience with Ubuntu which has improved drastically. I’ll try to get that up later. For now, I’m left wondering about Goobuntu…

A lot of bloggers post lists like this, so I thought I would give it a try. Here’s a list of the programs I consider best and why.

1. OS = Ubuntu and Windows XP
– Ubuntu is awesome. We have our fights, sure. But it all works out in the end. XP I still can’t live without at the moment, but I’m trying hard.
2. GAIM.
– There’s really no other IM client.
3. Mozilla Firefox
– IE? What the hell is that?
4. WordPress
– No one does blogs better.
5. Gmail
– Still got yahoo? Get rid of it. Archives. Archives. I cannot say that enough.
6. Winamp(on XP) and Amarok(on Ubuntu)
– Winamp? It really kicks the llama’s ass. Amarok is just cool.
7. Nethack
– After over 20 years, video games still don’t get much more fun.
8. GIMP
– Ubuntu or Windows. This is my all time favorite graphics editor.
9. OpenOffice.
– Covers all of my word processing and database needs, free, and works on both platforms.

That’ll do for now. Anyone have suggestions on great things I’m missing out on?

So, I’ve been trying to get my second computer working with Ubuntu for several weeks now to no avail. At this point the only way to describe my opinion of this operating system is with a mixture of love and extreme hatred.

I have never, ever had so much trouble trying to do anything with Windows as I have with Ubuntu. I’m at my wits’ end with it. I love the way it runs, WHEN it runs. Most of the time, it just doesn’t.

After fighting and fighting with learning the new OS, I finally gave up on Kubuntu, and did a complete format to take it to regular Ubuntu. This was a smart thing for purposes of ease of use. The bad thing is that I can’t stand the way Ubuntu looks without the KDE.

So, I spent most of today trying to get the Gnome Desktop to look like something besides crap. I downloaded a Login Manager Theme and installed it with GDM Setup. Upon restart, the computer froze and would not load the login screen so that I could access anything. Repeated restarts have yielded nothing better.

So, I turn on the Windows box and head over to the Ubuntu Support IRC. I have to ask my question at least a dozen times before anyone even attempts an answer. Then the answer I get is that MAYBE if I go in and delete the GDM theme manually, from recovery mode, it would go back to normal.

Here’s where it gets worse. I have no idea how to do that! No clue on where it would be, or how to get rid of it if I did know.

Here I am, about to REINSTALL Ubuntu for the 5th(!) time. I’m very close to giving it up. I’d be super pissed off by now if I had installed this OS on my main PC. If anyone has any ideas of how to fix this with the least amount of worry, PLEASE comment.